The
voluptuous element in suckling may thus be called a merciful provision of
Nature for securing the maintenance of the child.

Cabanis seems to have realized the significance of this
connection as the basis of the sympathy between mother and child,
and more recently Lombroso and Ferrero have remarked (_La Donna
Delinquente_, p. 438) on the fact that maternal love has a sexual
basis in the element of venereal pleasure, though usually
inconsiderable, experienced during suckling. Houzeau has referred
to the fact that in the majority of animals the relation between
mother and offspring is only close during the period of
lactation, and this is certainly connected with the fact that it
is only during lactation that the female animal can derive
physical gratification from her offspring. When living on a farm
I have ascertained that cows sometimes, though not frequently,
exhibit slight signs of sexual excitement, with secretion of
mucus, while being milked; so that, as the dairymaid herself
observed, it is as if they were being "bulled." The sow, like
some other mammals, often eats her own young after birth,
mistaking them, it is thought, for the placenta, which is
normally eaten by most mammals; it is said that the sow never
eats her young when they have once taken the teat.

It occasionally happens that this normal tendency for suckling to
produce voluptuous sexual emotions is present in an extreme
degree, and may lead to sexual perversions. It does not appear
that the sexual sensations aroused by suckling usually culminate
in the orgasm; this however, was noted in a case recorded by
Fere, of a slightly neurotic woman in whom intense sexual
excitement occurred during suckling, especially if prolonged; so
far as possible, she shortened the periods of suckling in order
to prevent, not always successfully, the occurrence of the orgasm
(Fere, _Archives de Neurologie_ No. 30, 1903). Icard refers to
the case of a woman who sought to become pregnant solely for the
sake of the voluptuous sensations she derived from suckling, and
Yellowlees (Art. "Masturbation," _Dictionary of Psychological
Medicine_) speaks of the overwhelming character of "the storms of
sexual feeling sometimes observed during lactation."

It may be remarked that the frequency of the association between
lactation and